This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Autologous stem cell therapies often utilize a patient's bone marrow or concentrated bone marrow aspirate to deliver autologous adult mononuclear stem cells to the patient for the treatment of a wide variety of disorders. Concentrated autologous cell therapies utilize in vitro cell culture to expand a desired cell line, or a point-of-care device to concentrate the mononuclear cell-rich fraction (CRF), for delivery to a desired treatment site. An exemplary point-of-care device is the MarrowStim™ device by Biomet Biologics, LLC of Warsaw, Ind.
Concentration of the mononuclear CRF is limited by the number of recovered mononuclear cells in the aspirate. Often, aspiration of four 1 ml aspirates recovers almost twice the number of osteoblast progenitor cells as compared to a single 4 ml aspirate. This discrepancy is often attributed to aspirate dilution from peripheral blood. Harvesting smaller volumes of aspirate from a variety of different locations, such as along the curved iliac crest of the pelvis, can improve the baseline and concentrated mononuclear CRF, which will lead to more effective stem cell therapies.